126 The Scottish Naturalist. 



species has so long been known, and the substitution of another 

 in its place. Certainly no name of later date than Spruce's 

 Hypnwn Borrerianwn can be adopted ; and indeed it is very 

 probable that this also must give place to Hypnu77i planifoliwn — 

 a name given by Bridel to a moss gathered in Normandy, and 

 held by Wilson and Lindberg to be identical with the so-called 

 European Hypium elegans. Bridel's description of the Normandy 

 plant seems to fit the other sufficiently though not perfectly well. 

 If, therefore, Wilson and Lindberg be right in allying this plant 

 specifically with the HypJiitm elega?is of the ' Bryologia Britannica ' 

 instead of with Hypnu?n silesiacuin, as C. Muller does, Bridel's 

 name of Hypmcm {Plagiotheciiiiii) p!a?iifoliiun ought hencefor- 

 ward to prevail. Three well-marked forms or varieties of this 

 species occur in Great Britain. 



At the autumn gathering of the Woolhope Club, the Rev. 

 Augustin Ley of St Leonard's read a most interesting and 

 excellent paper on the Mosses of Herefordshire, of which there 

 are upwards of 230 species. Among those enumerated there are 

 none new to Britain ; but there are many great rarities — such as 

 Systegium multicapsidare, Pottia ccespitosa^ Grimmia subsquarrosa, 

 Bryinn Barnesiij Atrichum crispum — and several others almost 

 equally rare. A very extraordinary, and to me unaccountable, 

 fact is brought to light in this paper. It appears that not a single 

 Ulota has yet been detected in Herefordshire, although the 

 closely-allied genus Orthotj'ichum is well represented there. The 

 cause of the absence, in so wide a district, of a whole genus, 

 embracing many species, and generally diffused throughout the 

 British Isles, is one of those subtle ones which may account for 

 some of the most extraordinary phenomena of the geographical 

 distribution of plants, but Avhich have hitherto defied the keenest 

 researches of botanists. It is probable that a careful inquiry into 

 the climatal and geological conditions of the areas in which these 

 plants abound, and into the same conditions of those areas in 

 which they are either altogether unknown or very rare, may ex- 

 plain what, for the present, is involved in obscurity ; but it is 

 l)0ssible that the cause may be still more recondite, and that the 

 traces by which one might be led to its discovery have been 

 obliterated long long ago. 



Recently good work has been done amongst our British 

 Cainpylopi. One of the most beautiful and characteristic of the 

 genus — viz., C Schivarzii^ may now be said to be pretty generally 

 diffused throughout the greater portion of the mountainous 



